


Scar Tissue

by ktfics



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hope's Peak Academy (Dangan Ronpa), Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Reconciliation, Trans Oma Kokichi, same orphanage theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 22:46:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19840084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktfics/pseuds/ktfics
Summary: “I don’t know what Momota sees in you; you spend all your time deriving joy from hurting others.” Harukawa’s face warps in his vision as Kokichi vaguely hears Kaito rush to defend him in the background. She grows small again, her face rounding out, her hair shortening, the scars of a killer fading away. She smiles shyly at him and tells him she’s going to protect him.There’s nothing he hates more than a bad liar.--Maki and Kokichi have a much-needed conversation about their pasts.





	Scar Tissue

**Author's Note:**

> So, the context for this fic is that it's based on the theory that Maki and Kokichi went to the same orphanage when they were kids, and that Kokichi was the little girl that Maki was friends with and tried to protect. Kokichi left the orphanage with DICE while Maki stayed behind to become an assassin; he tried to get her to leave with him but she refused both because she wasn't sure they could get away and because she had to protect the rest of the orphanage and Kokichi from somehow getting taken in or chased down by the cult. Years later, they both go to HPA together and Kokichi recognizes Maki (and that's how he knows and exposes her true talent), but she doesn't recognize him because he's transitioned and acts a lot differently. This information is kind of vague in the fic because I don't think either of them would open up too much about their shared pasts, so hopefully this context helps! It's kind of a wild theory but I hope y'all like this fic, I started it forever ago and just finally finished it. Follow me on tumblr @dykeenvy if you wanna discuss the theory more or talk oumota!

Harukawa-chan really is ugly, Kokichi thinks. All sharp edges and poorly restrained violence and the worst sense of humor he’s ever come across in his life. Yuck. He tries to remember if she was this ugly as a child, back before she was a glorified guard dog, back when they all used to play house together and pretend that they would grow up to be people that someone would want to come home to.

But Kokichi doesn’t like dwelling on the past any more than he cares to dwell on Harukawa, so he decides it doesn’t matter if she was or was not an ugly child because she’s ugly now and his boyfriend really is an idiot if he thought this was ever going to work.

Harukawa’s hands are white-knuckled from where she grips the edge of his desk, the lunch that Tojo had made for them spilled all over the floor. Her teeth are bared and her eyes are flashing red and she doesn’t bother asking him if he wants to die, because apparently that’s a statement she only reserves for friends. Which, not only does he consider that a terrible way to show your friendship, but, seriously? Where’s the pizazz? The drama? The intrigue? It’s a terrible catchphrase all around, really.

“You’re detestable. You’ve always had it out for me, what’s your goddamn problem?” He can even see a little bit of genuine hurt flashing in her eyes through all the anger.

The ugliest part of Harukawa, he thinks, is how she wears her trauma on her sleeve, just as obviously as she displays the scars she’s accumulated. It was disgusting, really, how she had spilled her entire tragic backstory to Momota and Saihara and Akamatsu almost as soon as he had revealed her true talent, like she deserves the pity she’s gotten, like she could ever possibly be hurting more than all of the people whose lives she’s ruined.

The ugliest part of Harukawa, he thinks, is how terribly honest she can be.

The jealousy that rears its head in him is even uglier, though. It’s ugly and unnameable and utterly unavoidable; he’s jealous that Momota gravitated to her first, jealous that everyone in class would prefer her company over his, jealous that she’s allowed to be rotten all over and still liked, that she can talk about exactly what she’s capable of while there are things that he’s done to survive that he can’t even think about, let alone say out loud. 

Kokichi has spent his entire life trying to be anything but human, trying to lie enough to overwrite the first five, eight, ten years of it, trying to ignore the fact that the only people that have stayed with him are those that he’s had to fight tooth and nail for, either just to keep them alive or to convince them to stick around. And then Harukawa waltzes into the classroom and she’s upset that people won’t stop chasing after her.

Harukawa bears her teeth at him and all the ugliest parts of him rise up to mirror her. The entire classroom seems to hold their breath as the tension between them swells up to unbearable levels.

Anger is no friend of Kokichi’s, despite how familiar he is with it. Anger makes his masks slip and his hands tremble and his teeth gnash. Anger turns him into the cornered animal that he feels like he is most of the time, makes his inhumanity visible.

Anger is the first emotion that Kokichi had to learn how to tear out and resmooth, settle it back underneath his skin until he was able to make it work for him or ignore it entirely. Anger is the first emotion that he can remember resenting, for its relentlessness, for its futility. Anger makes him sloppy, dulls both his senses and his carefully sharpened edges.

Kokichi is angry and he aches with it.

“My only problem with you,” he bites out, the words leaving him before he can think them over, “Is that I think you’re nasty and selfish, Harukawa-chan!”

She scoffs, not bothering to restrain her own fury. “Don’t project your own shortcomings onto me, Ouma. There’s a reason no one wants to spend time with you.”

He wants to lie in the same way he always does, to say that he doesn’t care, that despite his talent, he doesn’t need other people, doesn’t care what his classmates think of him. The words threaten to choke him to death in their rush to roll off his tongue, but Harukawa just speaks over him as he stands there red-faced and stuttering out excuses.

“I don’t know what Momota sees in you; you spend all your time deriving joy from hurting others.” Harukawa’s face warps in his vision as Kokichi vaguely hears Kaito rush to defend him in the background. She grows small again, her face rounding out, her hair shortening, the scars of a killer fading away. She smiles shyly at him and tells him she’s going to protect him.

There’s nothing he hates more than a bad liar.

“Well, I imagine he sees the same thing in me that you used to.” Kokichi regrets the words as soon as they tumble out of him, painful in how unpolished they are, how bitter. This wasn’t supposed to happen, he thinks. His current self is supposed to be so divorced from his past that it’s incapable of catching up with him; he’s supposed to be better at leaving things behind by now.

The silence in the room edges into confusion. “What?” Harukawa shoots him a puzzled glare.

Kokichi clamps his mouth shut tight, trying to decide on one of the lies fluttering inside of him like butterflies, like a swarm of bees. It shouldn’t be hard to claim his previous statement was just nonsense, just another meaningless jibe-

“Harukawa-chan, Harukawa-chan,” he instead pitches his voice up to mimic that of a child’s. “Play house with me! You can be the dad again! Pleaseee-”

“Shut up. Just-” her voice is strangled, her eyes wide, “Shut up. You can’t be, you can’t-”

And then she mutters a name that Kokichi hasn’t heard out loud in years, so unfamiliar that it takes a second for him to even recognize it.

“Don’t,” is the only thing he hisses out in response.

“What- what happened to you- they told me you died, they said-”

“Well, I’m a very good liar, Harukawa-chan. And so are you, as it turns out.”

“When did I-”

“You said you didn’t want to come with us. When we ran from the orphanage; you left us behind- you left-”

You left me, he thinks. I trusted you, he thinks. It doesn’t matter, really, that Harukawa was the last person he can remember that offered to take care of him before he decided to lead DICE out of the orphanage. It doesn’t matter that she declined to come with him in order to become a killer, it doesn’t matter, it really, truly doesn’t, because who he is now has nothing to do with how he grew up, with the people that decided he wasn’t worth sticking around for.

Memories he’s long buried, memories of his parents and their disapproving stares, memories of the orphanage and those who became family and those who didn’t, memories of the food he’s had to steal and the cons he’s had to run and and the other things he’s done for just a bit more money, just enough to get them through the winter, memories of the hands that have touched him, to hurt or to comfort or to try to put him in his place, resurface all at once. The anger pulses inside of him dully.

He tries to remind himself that anything bad that has ever happened to him he’s done to himself; he’s the one that’s pushed away everyone that’s ever left him. The lie isn’t nearly as effective as it normally is with Harukawa staring at him like he’s something foreign, something worth trying to understand.

“What happened to you,” she repeats.

Kokichi is hyper-aware of everyone still in the classroom, of Saihara’s perceptive gaze, of the concern evident in every inch of Kaito’s posture.

“I survived,” he answers.

It is the first time in a long time he’s been able to properly look Harukawa in the eyes, without disgust clouding his vision. It is the first time in a long time he’s been able to be honest with her.

She doesn’t apologize, not for how she strangled him or the way they left each other. He doesn’t apologize either, not for the nasty comments he’s levelled her way or how he never bothered going back for her after he found out her new profession. He thinks it might have made them both sick, anyway; being nice is no longer either of their fortes. Kaito, of course, spends the next hour trying to get them to open up more about their time in the orphanage before he realizes that they’ve both said all they need to say to each other.

The next day, they try again. They eat lunch in the courtyard, just the three of them, in what Kaito probably figured was the calmest environment he could possibly provide for them, and when Kokichi sneakily tries to steal the dessert off of Harukawa’s plate, she asks him “do you want to die?” in the least inflamed voice he’s ever provoked from her and Kokichi feels no instinctive need to flinch in response.

Harukawa even begrudgingly gives him half of her dessert after only a small bit of whining; it looks like compromise may become possible between them just yet. 

And, although neither of them would ever admit it, the beaming smile that erupts across Kaito’s face at the sight of their cooperation is almost worth all of the previous aggravation they’d put each other through when forced to try to get along because of him.

Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Hopefully Maki and Kokichi weren't too OOC here, I tried to base Maki's characterization more on how she acted in the earlier parts of the game and Kokichi's outburst on his breakdown during the chapter 4 trial. Comments would be appreciated if you liked this fic!!


End file.
